xxix speaker gender, age, known opinions, knowledge of the topic and what the
speaker is likely to know about it, or feel about it , and so on. In short, in the top-down processing, students do not need to pay much
attention to the language used. As in some situations, the topic or the speaker is so familiar that they can take for granted a great deal of what is said. It allows to
anchor their comprehension on what they think is relevant knowledge of the topic, the speaker, and so on.
3. Types of Listening Activities
An essential factor in creating effective listeners is exposing the listeners to a variety of listening activities. According to Helgesen and Brown 1994: xii there
are three types of listening activities, namely: a Listening for the main idealistening for gistglobal listening.
It is listening skill for understanding the general meaning. The listener usually is quick to understand the idea of the text. Heshe can imagine to catch the general
meaning of something heshe hears. b Listening for specific informationlistening for detail focused listening.
It involves understanding the task and focusing to catch certain information. c Listening between the lines understanding inferences.
Understanding inferences is the most difficult skill in the listening activities. It is not just imagining meanings. It is thinking about meaning that is given, even
xxx though the specific words are not used. It means the listener needs to understand
the sequences of the story. Here, in this listening activity, the hearer must be able to draw the inference of the story.
4. Listening Problems
The first step in constructing a successful listening is to identify the learning problems that students are experiencing as a result of listening to related issues.
Penny Ur 1996: 111-112 identified the learners problems and the solutions as follows:
a Trouble with sounds Most students rely mostly on context for comprehension; they are often
themselves unaware of inaccurate sound perception. b Have to understand every word
Some students feel worried and stressed when they miss some words of the text. Here, the teacher needs to give the students practice in selective ignoring of
heard informationsomething, they do naturally in their mother tongue: The teacher should explain this point to the students, and set them occasional tasks
that ask them to scan a relatively long tasks for one or two limited items of information.
c Can not understand fast, natural native speech.
xxxi The students can only understand if the teacher talks slowly and clearly. They
can not understand fast, natural native-sounding speech. To overcome this problem; the teacher has to expose the students to as much spontaneous-informal
talk as possible, so they can understand the native speech. The teacher can also provide them with the sorts of discourse at the right level for them.
d Need to hear thing, more than once In order to understand, students need more than once to hear the text. In this
problem, the teacher can try to use texts that include redundant passage and within which the essential information is presented more than once and not too
intensively and give the students the opportunity to request clarification or repetition during the listening.
e Find it difficult to keep up The students feel overloaded with incoming information. The solution is not so
much to slow down the discourse but rather to encourage them to relax, stop trying to understand everything, learn to pick out what is essential and allow
themselves to ignore the rest.
f Get tired
xxxii Sometimes, students feel tired and bored to listen, if the discourse is too long.
They also feel more difficult to concentrate: The solution of this problem is similar with the third problem.
Similar to Penny Ur 1996: 113, Rost 1994: 119 has identified the listeners problems as follows: acuity of hearing, discrimination and auditory perception,
attention and concentration, comprehension including four aspects, namely: factual or literal comprehension, interpretation, critical listening, and evolutional listening.
5. Difficulties in Listening
